Fun At The Fast Charger In New Hampshire
When are people ever this friendly with strangers?
So there we were, in the jungle; I mean, at an Electrify America charging station in New Hampshire earlier today, in our rented Kia EV6.
At first, there was nothing; no EVs, no wait, just your typical Walmart parking lot. It was quiet… almost too quiet.
And then - boom! It all happened so fast. I look up and there’s two massive Ford F-150 Lightnings on either side of us, with families piling out of each of them. Then a Hyundai Ioniq (maybe it was a Kona?), A VW ID4, a Ford Mustang Mach-E GT, even a little U.K.-made green Mini-Cooper.
The people piled out and started talking to each other. “How do you like your lightning?”
“We love it! It’s our second road trip, from South Florida to North of Montreal.” (Mont Tremblant)
“We just got our Tesla charger adapter, it’s a game-changer.”
“How many miles do you get on the highway?”
“Wanna see the frunk?” (Giant F-150 frunk opens, crammed full of kids stuff)
“We bought the Mach-E Mustang two years ago, love it, go back and forth between Texas and Vermont twice a year, its been awesome.”
“Love the Mini, but wish it had more range, you should wait for the longer range version coming out soon.”
“You went to Savannah? How was it?
“Hey, who’s next in line… actually, Charger #4 is broken. I’ll call and see if they can reboot it for you.”
“I think he was here first. You go first, you should definitely go first, you’ve been waiting longest.”
“No, I insist, you go first.”
“Wanna see the Lightning’s screen? It’s the coolest part.” (Front door opens, interior tour proceeds)
I quickly go from annoyed with Electrify America’s software to super pumped from the people interaction, their enthusiasm about their EVs, their evangelism, their raw friendliness.
We’ve been to dozens of Tesla Superchargers… this never happens, people just sit in their cars on the phone.
I’ve been to thousands of gas stations in my life, this never happens.
I can only imagine maybe the very earliest gas stations were like this, when people were hyper-pumped (pun) about their Model T’s?
If you have a chance to drive or rent a car not named Tesla, I encourage you to have this experience… go to a non-Tesla fast charging station and just talk to people. They’re figuring out how to make it work, they want to talk and help one another. They’re awesome.
What a great feeling.